Drugs in Shetland

[OP8S]

^ I take it you're not a big fan of human rights ?

[paulb]

coming home on the ferry this morning I was met with the sniffer dog. wise policing with 400 folk music folks a very good chance that there would be some drugs coming in.

do they run the dogs around the cars. It must be easier to smuggle stuff buried in a car or truck than on a person.

do they check the fishing boats that come from south. There does not seem to be anything stopping someone just walking off a boat with loads of stuff.

 

So the argument is that the wacky backy is stopped so they switch to hard drugs. If that is true then it should be bunged up to a class A drug as it leads to addiction.

 

I can't see that Orkney is going to have a lesser drug problem than up here. its just harder to get it here.

[Guest Anonymous]

I've got family in orkney and many friends there also and they all say the drug problem is far worse here than there. And as for the trigger for here well I will let you wait for the book that a former dealer to the isles is currently in the process of getting published. It will open a lot of eyes as well as upsetting a fair few folks on here. I cant wait

[Guest Anonymous]

So the argument is that the wacky backy is stopped so they switch to hard drugs. If that is true then it should be bunged up to a class A drug as it leads to addiction.

 

or legalised to take it out of the hands of criminals altogether. I don't have a problem with dope as it would take a large weight of it falling on you to do you any damage from excessive amounts. as for the mental health issues I would state that the folk that have problems with hash were off their nuts in the first place

[Stevo]

wait for the book that a former dealer to the isles is currently in the process of getting published. It will open a lot of eyes as well as upsetting a fair few folks on here. I cant wait

 

Really...?

[nederlander]

coming home on the ferry this morning I was met with the sniffer dog. wise policing with 400 folk music folks a very good chance that there would be some drugs coming in.

 

How wonderfully stereotypical of you. Honestly, some of the people on here...

[OP8S]

Cannabis Class A !? I thought the post was more about the LACK of softer drugs entering the island, putting the users in the position where if they wanted to get high then they had to look elsewhere. Our gaols are full enough with people who shouldn't really be there in the first place. Not if rehabilitation is what the public want. I was at school with a fellow who was sent to prison for possession of cannabis, wasn't a bad lad really. Came out of prison with a heroin habit & has never fully recovered. So I don't think throwing young people to the mercy of the penal system will solve anything. IMO it just makes matters worse.

How long will we carry on with this insanity before we will admit to ourselves that prohabition does & never has worked ( unless enforced by Taliban like police state ).

We all know that it's the legal substances that are costing our country the most. Should we criminalise these substances ? Alcohol, tobacco, double cream to clog up the arteries! Simply throwing people in gaol isn't working & we're still all paying for the persons bed & board.

The majority of people in 1st world countries use some kind of substance to change their conciousness at one time or another. Some are even included in religous ceremonies.

Do you advocate the criminalisation of every substance that alters the users perception paulb ? If that's the case you've got quite a battle on your hands, I wouldn't fancy trying to stamp out the consumption of alcohol in Shetland let alone the rest of the U.K.

Substances that alter the users perceptions & conciousness have been consumed since the start of history. Even certain primates have discovered how to get legless of certain fruits once fermented.

Personally I prefer to live & let live. Your opinion is as valid as mine & as long as you do not harm others I'm not to bothered what people do behind closed doors.

I do think however that peoples preffered substances should be distributed under strict regulation which can only be controlled by the Government. If we rid ourselves of the black market, then we can re-evaluate the situation & maybe we will find better methods of dealing with the issues that surround drug-use of all forms.

 

I actually agree with you on that one bob, the only way cannabis could kill you is if a tonne actually fell on top of you. Though I hope this book isn't the one that a friend of mine living in Shetland has just read. She knew the author quite closely ( if it's the same book ) & has just finished reading it. To use her words not mine..." a lot of slester " & that she " wouldn't of expected anything else from the author ". According to her only 150 books have been published, which speaks for itself. Like I said before, it may be a different book. Though 2 on the same subject seems a tad surprising. I will keep an open mind until I get my hands on a copy. If it's the same author then he is no longer with us which is a bit of a shame, purely so that he could back up his claims.

[Para Handy]

^ I take it you're not a big fan of human rights ?

 

Not for drug dealers or terrorists come to that.

After all the lives they have destroyed over the years. They have lost the right to exist.

Never mind be a member of the human race

[Fjool]

^ What about tobacconists and publicans?

[shetlandpeat]

Cannabis, harmless

So the argument is that the wacky backy is stopped so they switch to hard drugs. If that is true then it should be bunged up to a class A drug as it leads to addiction.

 

. I don't have a problem with dope as it would take a large weight of it falling on you to do you any damage from excessive amounts. as for the mental health issues I would state that the folk that have problems with hash were off their nuts in the first place

 

Cannabis smoke contains many of the same cancer causing substances (carcinogens) as tobacco - at least 50 of them. In addition, cannabis is often mixed with tobacco when smoked.

 

One of these carcinogens is benzyprene. Benzyprene is in the tar of both tobacco and cannabis cigarettes. We know that benzyprene causes cancer. It alters a gene called p53, which is a tumour suppressor gene. We know that 3 out of 4 lung cancers (75%) occur in people who have faulty p53 genes. The p53 gene is also linked to many other cancers.

 

Researchers have shown that THC causes benzpyrene to promote the p53 gene to change. But other researchers have looked at the effects of pure THC on brain tumour cells and found that it killed them in laboratory tests. This is a long way from using it as a treatment. But you can see from this that the evidence on cannabis causing cancer is confusing.

 

Not so harmless,. But one of its compounds could treat cancer in the future, I doubt by smoking.

 

Researchers in the US have found that men who regularly smoke cannabis have a 70 per cent increased risk of testicular cancer. The risk was highest – twice that of those who never used the drug – in those who smoked it at least once a week or had a long history of use, beginning in adolescence.

 

Not so good...

 

A 2008 study by the National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Centre in Baltimore found that heavy, chronic smoking of marijuana changed blood proteins associated with heart disease and stroke.[41] This is a result of raised carboxyhemoglobin levels from carbon monoxide. A similar increase in heart disease and ischemic strokes is observed in tobacco smokers, which suggests that the harmful effects come from combustion products, not marijuana.

 

Smoking any substance, seems to be harmful.

 

To introduce another cause of cancer or linked to cancer similar to smoking tobacco is short sighted, it will not stop the black market as it will be taxed, because the GOV will need the money to treat even more folk with lung cancers, heart problems and mental illnesses.

Offering another drug instead of another?

 

So we may see kids smoking hash, drinking and smoking tobacco common place.

That cannot be a viable model.

[Infiltrator]

^ What about tobacconists and publicans?

 

Last time I looked both these businesses were still legal.

[Fjool]

^ The issue of legality wasn't mentioned. They're steal drug dealers in the broad sense.

[Infiltrator]

^ The issue of legality wasn't mentioned. They're steal drug dealers in the broad sense.

 

You might not have mentioned it - but it's still the fundamental difference between the drugs being discussed.

 

So you would have classed Hughie who owned the Lounge in the 80's in the same 'broad' group along with drug dealers?

[Fjool]

^ I'm not trying to discuss that; I'm asking ParaHandy whether he thinks human rights should be removed from 'drug dealers' when this category includes, by some definitions, publicans. It's the sweeping statement I object to and I'm trying to illustrate the lack of clarity present in such.

[shetlandpeat]

^ The issue of legality wasn't mentioned. They're steal drug dealers in the broad sense.

 

You might not have mentioned it - but it's still the fundamental difference between the drugs being discussed.

 

 

Bit wrong there, the title of the string is Drugs in Shetland.

 

And you cannot think that a chemical that puts hundreds of thousands in hospital every year and a plant that damages kids as they develop and induces a slow and painful death in many folk be justified by its legal status, you are just hiding behind that. Tha argument or discussion has invilved all substances and is also comparing them as far as they destroy society. Read back several pages and you will see this.

 

I remember tobacconists selling single cigarettes to school kids and off licenses that will knowingly sell alcohol to kids.

 

Heroin is legal to prescribe, as it is legal for an18 year old to by booze for himself.

 

Opiate abuse is far less damaging to all than drink, Nick O' Teen, cannabis and cocaine.

 

The bigger problem is how society deals with this, how parents set standard for kids that are carried through to death. How the masses are educated to understand that folk can be fixed, you do not have to show a vindictive streak and beat, kill or lock them up at whim because an ignorant mass said so.